The interior of the library was destroyed, supposedly by an earthquake in 262 A.D., and the façade by another earthquake in the tenth or eleventh century A.D. It lay in ruins for centuries, until the façade was re-erected (anastylosis) by archaeologists between 1970 and 1978.

History

Celsus, in the honour of whom the library was originally built, had been consul in 92 AD, governor of Asia in 105 AD, and a wealthy and popular local citizen. He was a native of nearby Sardis and amongst the earliest men of purely Greek origin to become a consul in the Roman Empire and is honoured both as a Greek and a Roman on the library itself. Celsus paid for the construction of the library with his own personal wealth. Construction on the library began in 117 AD and was completed in 120, in Ephesus, a territory that was traditionally Greek.
The building is important as one of the few remaining examples of an ancient Roman-influenced library. It also shows that public libraries were built not only in Rome itself but throughout the Roman Empire.

Work

According to Origen, Celsus was the author of an anti-Christian work titled The True Word (Alēthēs logos). This work was lost, but we have Origen's account of it in his writings. It was during the reign of Philip the Arab that Origen received this work for rebuttal. Origen's refutation of The True Word contained its text, interwoven with Origen's replies. Origen's work has survived and thereby preserved Celsus' work with it.

Celsus seems to have been interested in Ancient Egyptian religion, and he seemed to know of Jewish logos-theology, both of which suggest The True Word was composed in Alexandria. Celsus wrote at a time when Christianity was being persecuted and when there seems to have been more than one emperor.

Celsus (usurper)

According to the Historia Augusta, in the twelfth year of Gallienus' reign (265), when usurpers were springing up in every quarter of the Roman world, a certain Celsus, who had never risen higher in the service of the state than the rank of a military tribune, living quietly on his lands in Africa, in no way remarkable except as a man of upright life and commanding person, was suddenly proclaimed emperor by Vibius Passienus, proconsul of the province, and Fabius Pomponianus, general of the Libyan frontier. So sudden was the movement, that the appropriate trappings of dignity had not been provided, and the hands of Galliena, a cousin it is said of the lawful monarch, invested the new prince with a robe snatched from the statue of a goddess.

The downfall of Celsus was not less rapid than his elevation: he was slain on the seventh day, his body was devoured by dogs, and the loyal inhabitants of Sicca testified their devotion to the reigning sovereign by devising an insult to the memory of his rival unheard-of before that time. The effigy of the traitor was raised high upon a cross, round which the rabble danced in triumph.